Cheri pointed at Rase. “It’s important a me. This is just the worse place I ever lived.” She glared at him and he fired up.

“Worse place? How about that dump you was brought up in? And I’d like to see how you save up enough money for a house in town by passin out hot dogs at a school cafeteria one day a week. You think you got it bad, but this is the best I can do. I been workin since I was seventeen, supportin this family. You’re dissatisfied with everthing, but you ever think a that, ever think I might a want a go into a different line a work than what I do? I wanted a be a high-school coach, but you got a go to college for that and I been hustlin miserable jobs for years so I could afford a buy this goddamn trailer you piss on, support you and all these goddamn kids. You don’t get it that the bad comes with the good. You don’t take notice that there’s a lot a guys would a walked, you bein so fuckin fat and always knocked up.”

“You don’t like your kids you shouldn’t a made so many a them. Use a rubber once in a while and you’d have the money— and no family.”

“Whyn’t you get on the pill? You take the fuckin housekeepin money and buy them goddamn dumb magazines you always get. You could get birth-control pills instead and not jump on me about kids.”